Star Citizen's dogfighting module delayed due to critical bugs

The Kickstarter-funded space games are in an interesting place at the moment. On the one hand, there's Elite: Dangerous, which is fast approaching its beta . On the other, heavier, bulkier hand, there's Star Citizen. As a crowdfunding campaign, it's unstoppable—nearing $45 million. As a game, it's yet to leave the hanger . That was set to change with the release of a dogfighting module, due to be sent out to backers today. Project director Chris Roberts has instead announced that the current build is too unstable for release and has been delayed. Again .

"Today," writes Roberts, "I sat down with Star Citizen's production leads for a 'go/no-go' meeting. We went around the virtual table, like a ground control team preparing to launch a rocket, and the decision was that we are not able to release Arena Commander tomorrow as there are too many blocking and critical issues outstanding."

Roberts points to a "newly developed DirectX crash" affecting one of the module's single-player modes, among other critical bugs and 'blockers'. "It would be foolish to release an unstable build," writes Roberts, "even if pre-alpha for the sake of meeting an internal deadline. This is the power of the crowdfunding that made Star Citizen possible: a publisher would make us ship tomorrow regardless of the current build quality... but as you are all focused on quality rather than a financial return for shareholders we are able to take a few more days to deliver something that is stable."

Cloud Imperium are yet to announce a new date for the release of Star Citizen's Arena Commander module.

Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.